Property damage and business interruption

5.2, damage to undersea internet cable

Middle East, Asia: less than a week after Egypt lost two-thirds of its international networking cables, two more lines were cut off the coast of Dubai. Cables linking the United Arab Emirates were also cut. Most internet traffic was diverted the long way around the globe via the Pacific undersea. Repair work started on one of three broken undersea cables providing data services to parts of the Middle East and Asia. Undersea cable connections were disrupted off Egypt’s northern coast when segments of two international cables were cut, affecting Internet access in the Gulf region and South Asia, and forcing service providers to reroute traffic. Egypt lost more than half its Internet capacity because of the breaks a week earlier. The country’s telecommunications ministry said it did not expect services to be back to normal for at least 10 days. UAE internet and telephone services were more or less back to normal after it used a terrestrial cable across Saudi Arabia to circumvent the problem. In India, the Internet Service Providers’ Association, said it would take at least eight to 10 days from the start of the repair work for Internet access to be restored completely.